As a Texan, I was surprised and delighted to see our First Lady honored. She was instrumental in creating Redwood National Park and many other conservation projects.
In Texas, she led saving our state flower, the bluebonnet, from extinction and helped jumpstart planting highway medians with wildflowers. Texas highways in spring are an incredible sight, thanks to her. Since her passing, Austin renamed Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake.
In back is a septic truck, which was doing the needful and disgusting job of pumping out the vault toilets. I can't say the aroma added to the beauty of Lady Bird Johnson Grove.
Past the Mississippi River's west channel from Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa, are middle islands, with the hills of western Wisconsin beyond. The Effigy Mounds are a collection of funerary or ritual mounds, some shaped like animals, along the river. They were built over a millennium or more, and similar mounds are found throughout the Eastern Woodlands. Taken by the history and beauty of the place, I placed a milkweed seed ball among three mounds. I now regret this. The Effigy Mounds are sacred to local Native American tribes whose ancestors are buried there. Even today, they perform religious ceremonies at the site. And I just put a bit of my friend there, not considering their feelings. Shitty of me. You don't mess with other folks' family graveyards and memorial markers.
Balcony House at Mesa Verde National Park isn’t as large as the park’s Cliff Palace, but it’s where I visited with Liz in 2014. I left her a milkweed seed ball here.
My visit this time was short as a blizzard was blowing toward Cortez, Colo., where Mesa Verde is. I hightailed it to Alamosa, Colo., to escape the weather. That proved fruitless as I got caught in snow flurries driven by 60 mph winds anyway!
But the snow made for a great visual at Great Sand Dunes National Park the next morning!
In mid-March, apple trees blossom in the historic Fruita, Utah, orchards, against the background of Capitol Reef National Park. Visit during harvest season, and you can sample the apples, cherries, peaches, and other fruit – as much as you can eat! But you're not allowed to take any extra from the park. I left a milkweed seed ball in this fertile place along the headwaters of the Fremont River.
Check out these ancient Native American petroglyphs at Parowan Gap, near Parowan, Utah! No one knows who made them or what they mean, but there are hypotheses aplenty.
One hypothesis interests the heck out of me. Archaeologist V. Garth Norman claims in "The Parowan Gap" that the gap and the Zipper Glyph (I think that one that looks like a roach head with giant antennas) acted as an ancient solar observatory by the Fremont culture. The gap faces west and is narrow, so I could definitely see it being used to track the sun’s latitudinal path.
By the way: Shout out to Freecampsites.net, where I found out about the Parowan Gap Petroglyphs. It wasn’t my favorite free campsite because of traffic, but the petroglyphs are definitely worth a look-see.
Montezuma Castle National Monument has nothing to do with Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II. (You know, the guy Coronado defeated to conquer Mexico.) But it has everything to do with an ancient mystery: What happened to the Ancestral Puebloans?
The Ancestral Puebloans – ancestors of today’s Hopis and others – had extensive, well-developed villages. These were spread throughout the Colorado Plateau, what’s known today as the Four Corners region: Northern Arizona, Southern Utah, Northern New Mexico, and Southern Colorado.
The civilization, which archaeologists believe was comprised of several nations, ramped up from around the 10th century. Farmers, traders, and irrigation specialists, they built cliff dwellings, like Montezuma’s Castle, and non-cliff villages, even cities, like Chaco Canyon, usually near perennial water sources. They also had extensive road systems which covered the entire region and traded with Central and coastal Mexico.
Then in the 14th century, many, many of these settlements were just ... abandoned. That’s the mystery! What drove them away? Was it drought? War? Religious fervor? No one really knows. Hopi oral history says they headed toward present Hopi settlements for spiritual reasons, kind of like the Jews wandering the desert, then settling the promised land.
But that’s sketchy. Religious motivations tend to be undergirded by pragmatic considerations.
I think it was a combination of war and drought. Reading up on the history, I noticed that the ancients resettled closer to large river valleys. Why? Well, first, rivers are more dependable water sources than smaller streams, like Montezuma Castle’s Beaver Creek. That speaks to drought. But rivers also allow you to support a larger, more concentrated population. That has defensive advantages that a cliff dwelling can’t meet.
In the same period, I noticed, Apaches, Ute, and Navajos moved into Colorado Plateau. Maybe they came as invaders or bandits. Let’s say there’s a drought and wild food sources aren’t enough. The Puebloans have crops. Why should hungry Apaches, Utes, and Navajos not take them? As it happens, the cliff dwellings and other cities don’t show much record of war, such as fires.
But why should wandering tribes try a siege? They don’t want to take over farms or settle in houses. Let the Puebloans hold up while your people take as much crop as you can eat and carry. All you need is to gather a band that vastly outnumbers any defenders, and there wouldn’t be much of a fight. Small, scattered Puebloan communities would have sat there helpless as their crops were ravaged. Hunger and migration would follow.
The solution is to field an equal or larger army to the invading bands. But armies take food. Small, scattered villages could only raise up a few dozen fighters. But larger settlements with vast croplands could raise hundreds, perhaps more, certainly enough to protect what they have. In other words, I suspect that in a time of drought and an influx of new peoples, the Hopi’s ancestors found refuge in urban concentration along the river valleys.
It’s a hypothesis, anyway. Maybe I’ll turn archaeologist and get to test it one day.
After climbing up the Gila River valley from Tucson, Arizona 77 goes over the Pinal Mountains to Globe, Ariz., via historic, scenic, and steep El Capitan Pass. It’s a lovely spot for a picnic, and shades and tables are there for just that reason! A historical marker there says that the pass was used by Kearney’s Army, guided by Kit Carson, in its 1846 expedition of the newly conquered US Southwest. But the pass had been known for much longer, used by Spaniards, Mexicans, and Native Americans. I bet lots of pre-Columbian traders used it for business with the Salado, local pueblo people whom archeologists say traded with Mesoamerican peoples, including the Aztecs. Macaw feathers and Pacific Ocean shells have been found at Salado sites, such as Besh-Ba-Gowah, down the mountain in Globe. That warning sign to truckers and the heavily laden going north is no joke. The sign further down the pass, tiny and yellow in the distance, warns that the grade is 8%. It’s curvy, too! All the emergency pullouts didn’t make me feel any safer. Trust me. I’m glad that my Promaster City, Kennel, has manual gear control for such occasions. Liz would have hated going up and down these mountains, even with such a beautiful view. She hated mountain driving and always felt I took the curves too fast, even at 10 mph below the speed limit. Below is a video I found on YouTube showing a panoramic view of El Capitan Pass. (That is not me in the video.)
FOR SALE: YFZ Ranch compound. Clubhouse suitable for May-to-December weddings and picnics. Great security. One owner (and his 71 wives). Serious cults only.
In the 19th century, Texas counties competed in the splendor of their courthouses, as you can see from Goliad County Courthouse's elaborate, Second Empire turrets.
I visited historic Cross Keys Plantation, and the most exciting thing to me was this mystery farm tool/torture device.* Yup, I'm an oddball! * I know what this gadget is. Do you?
The story seems far fetched, but Hernando de Soto's expedition is believed to have traveled close to these Georgia mountains. Stranger things have happened!
Here's the trail *to* the Appalachian Trail's southern start on Springer Mountain – 8.5 miles UP. Think of it as a qualifying hike. Only 2,190* more miles to go! * Per the Appalachian Trail Conference on this post date
I've found that every US town big enough for a chain grocery store and a Chinese restaurant has a prison. The prison economy keeps small towns afloat! :-)
" that the gap and the Zipper Glyph (I think that one that looks like a roach head with giant antennas) acted as an ancient solar observatory by the 
